Indonesia must learn from Thailand and Japan to secure its agricultural land and improve food supplies to ensure food security, agreed several officials on Monday.

Indonesian Ambassador to Thailand Mohammad Hatta said that Thailand’s food security measures were better than Indonesia’s.

“The government of Thailand does not allow agriculture land conversion,” he said as quoted by detikfinance.com news portal.

“It is different in Indonesia, where agricultural land can be converted into residential or industrial area by a land acquisition process.”

The 2009 Agriculture Land Protection Law requires the government to handle land acquisitions for infrastructure construction related to, for example, education, dams, irrigation, landfills, state hospitals, railways, roads and highways before offering a project tender.

According to the law, the government must also assign a team to value land prices.

Indonesia’s outdated farming system has led to a decrease in fruit production and an increase in its dependency on imported produce

Recent statistics show Indonesia is increasingly dependent on imported fruit with domestic production volumes of some major categories falling significantly.

Central Statistics Agency (BPS) figures reported by the Jakarta Post show a significant drop in domestic fruit production with mango yields falling to 1.3m tonnes in 2010 compared with 2.2m tonnes the previous year, while durian production fell from 797,798 tonnes in 2009 to 491,179 tonnes the following year.

Indonesia's inability to compete with other producer countries, such as China, in terms of price and quality meant imported fruit was beginning to dominate the domestic market, the newspaper reported.

According to data from BPS, Indonesia has seen its expenditure on imported fruit jump to US$128m in the first two months of…

The author says this is a sign of a broken system, “not because the policies that created it were necessarily bad policies for the time in which they were created, but because the context has changed.”

E. coli outbreak: EU ministers to hold crisis talksThe E.coli strain is said to be a new hybrid form toxic to humans Continue reading the main storyEurope's E. coli outbreakAre bean sprouts risky?German hospitals under strainQ&A: E. coli outbreakThe economic impact EU agriculture ministers are to hold emergency talks, as efforts continue to find the source of an E.coli outbreak which has killed 22 people. The first tests on bean sprouts from a German farm suspected of being the source of the outbreak were negative. Of 40 samples being examined from the farm in Uelzen, south of Hamburg, 23 tested negative, officials said. More than 2,200 people have fallen ill in 12 countries. Cases outside Germany have been linked to travel there. Initially, German officials had pointed to Spanish cucumbers as the likely cause. Spain's warningIn Luxembourg, the EU agriculture ministers will want to know how close experts are to identifying the source, amid mounting criticism of the investigation …

JUNE 06, 2011WALMART UNVEILS WALMART EXPRESS SMALL STORE FORMAT Walmart will launch its new Walmart Express small store format this week after showing the first store to media gathered in Arkansas for the company’s Annual Shareholders' Meeting. The store is located in Gentry, a rural town with a population of around 3,000.

Walmart Express stores will be around 15,000 sq ft and will carry 11,000-13,000 SKUs, compared to 100,000 at the big-box outlets. Ready meals and other fresh food feature prominently, but a small range of non-food is also available. Anthony Hucker, Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at Walmart US, said some stores will feature gas stations and most will have pharmacies.

Hucker explained that rural towns are not the only place where Walmart sees growth opportunities for the Express concept, as the retailer plans to open about 15 to 20 Walmart Express locations this year both in rural markets in Northwest Arkansas and North Carolina as well as in urban…

Traders dumped Peru’s financial assets on Monday and the stockmarket was halted as investors doubted left-wing Ollanta Humala’s vows to manage the economy prudently. Peru’s bourse suspended trading two hours early and said it would not reopen until Tuesday after investors pushed the benchmark index 12.5 per cent lower in its biggest one-day fall ever. Traders said they wanted Mr. Humala to quickly send signals about whom he will appoint to key policy making posts. MORE RELATED T